


The time in our hands

by FunnyLittleOwl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8742577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunnyLittleOwl/pseuds/FunnyLittleOwl
Summary: For Dean, every moment with Sam was a moment well spent.





	

Dean paced for a while outside the bedroom before going in. Sam was untying his shirt distractedly, while a low white noise was buzzing from the TV. It was an old movie, old enough for them to have watched it together a couple of times when they were younger, two bored kids stuck in a motel room alone for weeks.

In the beginning, there used to be nothing between them. Nothing but time, warning and whistling in its approach; every winter, every birthday, every grade passed were a reminder they were always growing; and that was so important - to John, anyway. Time should go faster for you, he said. To be young means to be unprepared. When there isn't time to be prepared there is only death, caught up in a trap, eaten in your sleep, shot in the head. They couldn't afford to be young with kind of life they led.

But Sam and Dean sometimes thought they just wanted time to freeze for a while.

Time threatened to come and take one of them away with it, every time John hadn't been home in a few days, every time Dean screwed up in a hunt, every time Sam's mind wandered away and thought about how nice it would be to have a normal life. Time was always lurking in the shadows, ready to tear up the fabric of reality and alter it as it pleased.

But it wasn't like the kids Sam and Dean gave Time too much thought, anyway. Not in the beginning, though.

Nothing between them - not even physical space - is how they seem to remember those old days whenever they're lost in thought in those mid-awake, mid-dreaming moments just before they fall asleep. The memories generally go like this: the bad guy cackling manically on the top of a train, the hero sweeping in and saving the girl, the horse getting its more than awaited carrots, and Dean mindlessly caressing Sammy's crazy curls as he giggles at something witty the older boy just said about the sidekick's beard from the movie. Those were the good times and they should have lasted forever, and that's their final thought as sleep finally hits.

Nothing good ever lasts forever, unfortunately, at least not for the Winchesters. At the present, time - and space - have brought them apart more then they've ever imagined possible at that early age.

It is awkwardly and uncomfortably that Dean sits on the edge of Sam's bed and pretends everything is fine, the Winchester way. Pretends everything is still like before and they are allowed, if for the briefest second, to have this, to have each other, to be able to simply say something.

"Your tattoo is gone," Dean says mindlessly, staring up at Sam's chest in a stupid moment of distraction. Of course it's gone, he's the one who ordered Cas to peel it off in the first place. But it was so strange, to see Sam without something that had become such an intrinsic part of who he was, a reminder of their unspoken agreement, a matching mark over their chests. That's when it hit Dean like lightning. Time had erased it too, and all the came along with it. It was gone, and so was any agreement they've ever had, silent or not.

"You... thinking about doing another one? You can't just walk around unprotected for that long," he added quickly, so he wouldn't sound like a complete dumbass.

"As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about that." Now Sam himself was staring at his own broad chest, rubbing gently at the place where his tattoo had been, apparently untouched by Dean's odd behavior. And then everybody in the room was staring at Sam's chest. It wasn't weird - wouldn't be weird, anyway, not before. They used to see each other like this all the time. "Used to" being the key words here.

Now it was nostalgic and just sad, getting a glimpse here and there of a body Dean still knew like his own. Every scar, every mole, every ticklish skin that Dean had attentively mapped over the years, every bit of Sam that just didn't belong to him anymore, wasn't his to please and wasn't his to marvel at. _And just whose fault was that_ , a wicked voice whispered in his ear.

Sam apparently didn't (or couldn't) listen, because he continued to undress himself like he wasn't breaking Dean's heart a little more with every nonchalant move he made across the room. Or maybe that was why he didn't stop. Who knows what even goes in that big brain of his these days, eager to hurt and to be hurt in the same thought. Dean certainly does not.

The credits were rolling and the room was pulsing with a heavy weight of tension, even though the story was long solved and all was well for the hero and his girl.

Sam sat on the bed to take off his socks, already dressed in his worn out grey pajama pants. He yawned, so Dean yawned. What the hell; he gave his final shot, "And you're, you know, doing it again where it was before? Just... curious, I mean," This whole conversation was pointless. Dean felt pathetic by stretching it even longer than it had to, but he needed to know. Sam had to know why he needed to know that, even disguised as casual interest. He had to.

But he didn't reply at first, just kept tugging at his right sock to pull it off, a look of pure concentration on his face. It was late. It was too late for this, anyway. Sam wasn't giving him any attention and Dean should be in his bedroom. At least his memory foam remembered him. He was just turning out to stand up when Sam sighed.

They shared a meaningful moment when their eyes met again, but Dean felt too groggy to understand what was implied there. He was unconsciously drawn nearer to Sam when he saw a sad little smile with close to none dimples tugging at the corners of the younger man's mouth... and then all mentions to leaving were instantly forgotten. Sam was smiling at him. It' been such a long time. He wanted more of this.

"You want to know if I'm doing it again above my heart, where yours is." But no smile, small as it was, should have the right to look as painful as Sam's did was when he said that. "You want to know that if I do, it means I've forgiven you. You want to know if you're even welcome in this bedroom right now. Am I wrong, Dean?"

Dean's smile was gone even before it's had a chance to appear. Sam knew him all too well. And apparently, he's forgotten how observant his little brother could actually be. He's slowly forgetting many things these days, he suspects. How Sam's eyes always looked greener after he laughed, how his leg jiggled when he was feeling particularly anxious, how playful his voice sounded when he was teasing him about food, and how soft when he was comforting him after a hunt gone wrong. He misses Sam and his little things so much that he's afraid he'd never be able to catch up on them again, even if Sam let him stare at him all day long for a whole month starting right now, from breakfast to David Letterman. He'd already lost so much. Sam changed so much and Dean was just stuck.

"Well, Dean, I don't know," Sam ran a hand through his hair, nervously. What was the question? "I don't know what I want, so how can I answer what you want me to? I'm... angry, I'm still angry at you, Dean, but I'm also so tired of fighting, you know? I'm so tired of fighting you. You obviously want to make amends and you're trying, I see it, but thing is, you don't even know where to begin. I thought you'd get it eventually, but you still don't. That's why I've been keeping my distance, I've... been giving you time to sort things out, but evidently, it's doing none of us any good. You're as thick as a brick sometimes! You're never going to get it, are you?"

"Get what?!"

"What exactly do you want from me now, Dean, honestly?"

"Jesus, Sam, why are you even... Nothing! I don't expect anything from you! No pity, no remorse, I know I don't deserve it, I don't expect you to give me anything at all." Dean's words betrayed him when he found himself inches from Sam's nose in the dimmed light of the TV, starting to get really pissed. He wasn't fooling anyone, not even himself, especially himself.

"That wasn't my question."

"I want nothing from you!"

"Dean..." Sam's eyes censored him. They seemed to say: honesty, remember?

"Fine, Sam, but you know it already!" Dean's voice was desperate now. "I want what I've always wanted. I want you. I want you to stay with me, alright? I want us to be together again, you and me, no more lies, no more fighting. I want you to tell me what I can do to make this right, Sammy. I can't have you pushing me away anymore. I'm at loss here, man. I want you... yes, I want you to forgive me, even though you shouldn't. That's it. I just... I wish I could erase all this mess off our lives."

"That doesn't sound like 'nothing' to me, Dean," and the little fucker even had the audacity to be sarcastic right now. "In fact, that sounds like everything. You want everything from me. You want me to forgive you, you want me to stop being mad, being hurt, you want this gone with a flick of your fingers and then we're back to square one, no growth, no lessons learned. You want to control me, Dean. And I can't have that. Not anymore."

Dean swallowed hard.

"So you are leaving, in time?"

"I said I can't have _that_ ," Sam cut in sharply, voice rising and furious. "I never said I didn't want you anymore. I told you I don't wanna fight anymore. Dean, all I want, I guess all I want... is for you to understand. This won't be over, Dean, just because we want it to. It won't just go away. We need to be in tune with each other, be aware of each other's needs. You've been neglecting me - no, let me finish - you've been neglecting me for so long, my feelings, my plans, my own will, you've been putting it all aside because 'you can't have that', you can't bear to have it any other way than yours, your infallible self-righteous way, because you're always right! You can't handle me saying no to you, you think I'm a... Dean!"

Dean desperately wrapped his arms around Sam and held him tight in the bed while the younger man suddenly burst on crying - perhaps from the surprise, perhaps because he's finally had enough, perhaps both - while calloused hands soothed circles across his back.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispered sorrowfully next to his ear. "I'm so sorry, Sammy, so sorry I failed you, so sorry I couldn't be who you needed me to be... so sorry I didn't show you the respect you deserved. I can't be sorry that I saved you, though, and for that I'm sorry too, because I'll never regret having you here and alive, even if that means you'll never look me in the face again, even if that means you hate me..."

"Dean, I don't hate you! Jesus, I could never hate you... I... Dean, I- you know I-"

"I know, Sammy."

"So much..."

"I know," he tucked Sam's head on his shoulder and moved one hand to caress his hair. "But I can't be sorry about that and you want me to be. I can't be sorry that I saved you, Sammy. That's who I am. That's the one and only thing you gotta understand about me. I can't lose you. Ever. I just can't. I meant what I said before, there just ain't no me if there ain't no you."

A minute of silence followed.

"Okay," Sam said simply, recomposing himself. Too damn soon, Dean thought. Sam unwrapped himself and put his hands between Dean's shoulders, almost steady.

"Okay?" Dean repeated, sounding way too hopeful for his own ears.

"It's okay for tonight, Dean," and then he was facing away from Dean, laying down on the bed, pulling the covers on himself. Shutting off again. "No more fighting tonight."

Oh.

He didn't actually think he'd be forgiven that easily, you see, he didn't think that would happen, but he still had hopes that maybe, maybe -

"What do you think you're doing?" _Leaving_ , Dean was about to reply. _I'm going to leave you alone for now as you clearly want me to._

"Dean, I can't believe you're actually that... Just... Come back here. You're tired, we're both tired. We both need this, so I figured why not indulge ourselves? Just for tonight. We need rest. Come back to bed."

Sam was holding up the covers for him and Dean couldn't believe his luck.

"Well, then scoot your giant ass over and gimme some room."

Sam smiled, a real smile for once.

A while later, as Dean lay mid-awake, mid-dreaming, with Sam's back plastered against his chest, arms thrown across his sides while the other man snored softly... Dean had a déjà vu. And in that moment he was highly tempted to believe that for the first time in forever Time bended itself to be just the way they wanted it.

Frozen.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this on a shelf for a while and thought I'd post it. Season 9 really messed with my feelings, it seems.


End file.
